OK, a little rant to start the ball rolling.
Design Proposal.
IMHO, we should look at first keeping OpenCard as simple as possible. By
this I mean that for the first release we shouldn't try to be too crazy
with features or we probably won't get anything finished.
I don't mean to keep it simple for ever, but I think we should have
realistic goals. If we start small we will have better moral and more
confidence that it will be completed. This way we will have something to
show the HyperCard list that we are achieving something. Unlike the now
invisible HyperCard team was doing.
If we do start small and get a first version finished we can then set
our goals to the sky and fly, fly, fly.
Things I think the first release should have.
- XCMD Engine
- HyperTalk interpreter
- Buttons, Fields and user definable external objects. <-- more about
that in a later post
- Multiple windows
- Cards <-- it wouldn't be OpenCard without them
What do people think about this?
Is keeping it simple not really doing anything to improve HyperCard?
I don't know. Just my thoughts.
I also think it should be kept as modular as possible. i.e. instead of
having inbuilt HyperTalk commands they could be all XCMD's. this way
even end users can customize OpenCard to their hearts delight. It also
means standalones would only need to include the commands it uses. Large
standalones is the problem with all multimedia apps i.e. Director,
MetaCard, SuperCard and HyperCard.
Objects could also be customizable. For example a button object
definition could be in an XOBJ resource. This way developers could
provide external objects like sprites and those who don't want them in
their project can just delete the resource.
All parts of the code could be practically called from code resources
including property inspectors and script editors and language
interpreters. This way developers can do what they like with OpenCard
without recompiling the application. For example you could write a code
resource to interpret scripts differently if you are used to another
language, or change the script editor so you can have coloured syntax.
Whatever.
That's it for now.
OpenCard Developer
Andre Spierings
